Literary LockUp
The Self-Imposed Bondage of Black Writers
Cover Story
He sneers out from the book cover, his eyes masked by sunglasses, his naked and muscular chest tattooed with gang markings, an assault weapon gripped firmly in his right hand. If the picture were flashed during one of those word-association tests, the response might be: Violent. Criminal. Your own impending death at the hands of an African-American man.
The author is “Monster” Kody Scott (aka Sanyika Shakur); his book is 1993's best-selling autobiography Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member, and the persona projected by Scott accurately represents the man he has become: Unabashedly, he confesses in his book to having spent 16 of his 29 years as a member of the notorious Los Angeles gang Eight-Tray Crips, and acknowledges that he is currently serving seven years for beating Roderick Saunders—a black man—to within an inch of his life on Jan. 27, 1991.
“I have pushed people violently out of this existence and have fathered three children,” Scott boasts. “I have felt completely free and have sat in total solitary confinement in San Quentin state prison. I have shot numerous people and have been shot seven times myself. I have been in gunfights in South Central and knife fights in Folsom state prison. Today, I languish at the bottom of one of the strictest maximum-security state prisons in this country.”... Continued 
Issue of Oct. 28 - Nov. 3, 1994
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